English study plan for 2016

I'll go through the 4 main parts of my 2015 study plan, Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing.

As an IELTS warrior (That's how I call people that are preparing IELTS), I do Cambridge IELTS text books and listen to BBC radio or sometimes watch English TV series, just to get more use to British accents. (Most of my English teachers were South Africans and Americans in Taiwan.) I found that IELTS listening test has not only British accents, but also Australian, New Zealand, South Africans and even Indian accents. There's a big portion of Australian accent indeed, IELTS headquarters is in Australia. It is a fun experience to identify different accents by practicing IELTS. The pronunciation of  'Laboratory' is not the same though.

That was my listening part for English study. As for reading, I prefer reading English novels, however I only read the English book that I've read in Mandarin. Apart from this, I also switched all of my languages settings into English on my mobile phones, computers, etc. Write down some fancy lines from English articles, such as TIME, National Geography, BBC news, the list goes on.

Speaking is the most difficult part from most of the Taiwanese. Owing to not much opportunities to speak English around myself, I skype with my foreign friends, doing language exchange, which is quite interesting and efficient!

How I improve my writing skills is to keep writing and writing and writing. I usually look up my notes, which I collect some nice quotes and lines from the English articles or novels.  I also write short stories in English, but that doesn't work really much on me.

I think I'll remain the same on studying English for 2016 until I reach my IELTS 7 goal in next February. Maybe add some new methods, such as turn off the subtitles of any kinds of English videos. And spend more time in the museum being a English guide.

A questionnaire result of Dreams

Q1.What is your gender?

12 participants (8 females and 4 males)

Q2.What is your biggest goal or dream?

All of the female participants not only want to live themselves a better life, but also willing to make the whole society better, though the jobs they want to do in the future varies, it is quite obvious to see they have the same goal in some ways. However, the male participants are tend to be more individualistic.

Q3.What is your ideal self?

3 out of 4 male participants do not know what their ideal self is. On the other hand, female participants are all capable of telling their ideal selves accurately, such as be humourous or be more confident.

Q4.Are you living the life of your dreams now?

Most people do not think they are living in their life of dreams.

Q5.If you have one year left to live, what would you do?

Almost every participant would like to spend their last year on traveling.  

Q6.If you have one day left to live, what would you do?

Every participant would stay with their friends and families at their last day, some would donate or assign their money to the others.

Q7.What's stopping you the most from pursuing your dreams?

Female participants are likely to be lack of confident when pursuing their dreams, however, male participants think that no money is the strongest factor in this case.

The Road Goes Ever On

The Road Goes Ever On - JRR Tolkien

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Life is long, but somehow also very short.  

Are we really brave enough to step out our first step to an unknown adventure?

Maybe yes, or maybe not. If yes, we'll have stories to share once we return. 

My review of the Art Museum

1. What is the name of the exhibition?

Forever Young

2. Who are the four artists featured in the exhibition?

Nick Dong

Charwei Tsai

Nara Yoshitomo

Li Hongbo

3. Where are they from?

Taiwan

Taiwan

Japan

China

4. Which was your favourite artist? Why?

Charwei Tsai

She is a learner of philosophy, but not a religious artist. Tsai wants to know what the Heart Sutra is about, especially one of the lines, “All reality is a phantom, and all phantoms are real.” The form is nonexistence, and the nonexistence is the form.  (色不異空，空不異色。色即是空，空即是色。) She tries to comprehend the principle of it, and while she’s thinking, she made her art works. Though we may not understand what her arts mean, we could still appreciate the beauty of her works.

5. Which was your least favourite? Why?  

Nara Yoshitomo

I don’t like art works that looks like cartoon characters. The eyes of the little girl makes me feel uncomfortable.

6. Which was your favourite piece of art?

Singularity

7. Why?

It describes how our universe starts, the big bang theory. Everything becomes possible in that instant.   

8. What are the ideas/concepts behind your favourite piece?

One is so tiny in such a big universe, but one could dream big if he/she is willing to step outside. That instant of changing your mind could change your life.

9. Describe your favourite piece:

It’s a ball floating and spinning on a platform, the bottom of the floating ball has a peak.

10.  Describe your least favourtie piece:

White Night

Again, the little girl’s eyes doesn’t look very nice. 

Black Gold

1.

a) developing

b) sack

c) commodities

d) profit

e) quality

2.

a) Joe O’Neill

b) Burte Arba

c) Dr Ernesto Illy

d) Tadesse Meskela

e) Addis Ababa

f) Kilenso, Mokonisa, Sidamo, Bule Hora

3.

a) coffee, the activity and excitement

b) They receive very low profits on their coffee.

c) New York

d) Brazil

e) 1999

f) Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe

4.

It is very hard to success in this case, because most of the coffee beans are sold to the very capitalism countries, such as the US. And even the price of the beans is decided in New York, so it’d be really difficult to change the situation of the coffee farmers.  

There’s a higher portion of people from eastern countries would not only care of how much money they had earn, but also care about the society. So, I’d like to suggest Tadesse find some cafe from eastern countries, which are less capitalist. Also combine some ideas with Makers, studios and workshops in Taiwan. Taiwanese young people are always creative and can come up with various kinds of ideas. Maybe Tadesse could find out that coffee could have other kind of uses instead of drinking only.  

5.

a) Buyers and sellers

b)They didn’t success in the WTO meeting. The values they had were completely opposite, so there’s no consensus as the end.

6.

a) T

b). F The buyers and sellers set the international price of coffee.

c) F. Oil is the most traded commodity in the world.

d) T

e) F. A lot of companies want to work inside the New York market because then they do business with big coffee companies who sell their coffee at a cheaper price.

7.

a) delegates

b) co-operate

c) aid

d) subsidising

e) poverty

8.

a)Developing countries cannot depend on aid forever. It’d be an endless nightmare if they do not fix the problem from the root.  

b)I don’t agree with what Pascal Lamy, the EU delegate, had said. The coffee market now doesn’t follow the law of supply and demand even in the US. The demand of coffee is always very high, but the farmers did not earn directly proportional. 

What makes a hero?

Being a student who studies Digital Media Design, I have to learn how to tell a story, in a digital way. To success in story telling, I've watched over 100 movies during my high school time and the types varied. Movies not only teach me the skills of telling a story , but I also gain the life lessons in a short period of time. 

As the video above said, "We human reflect on our world, through symbolic stories of our own lives." Lives are like fictions, but fictions are also based on our real lives, which is full of setbacks but also surprises. Since our birth in this world, our adventure had begun. That is, every individual must has his/her own story to tell.

 I found there are always some common points in the movies I've watched. What really decides to make a person becomes a hero is about "courage". Just like Walter Mitty said, "Life is about courage and going into the unknown." Are you brave enough to step out your first step to an unknown adventure? And even when you return gloriously, do you have the courage to share your story out?

 Life is just so interesting that everyone is a hero in some ways. If you're still hesitating on going to an adventure, think about what Gandalf had said, "Good stories deserve embellishment. You'll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back." Off you go!

About Cross Country Romance

Due to the technological improvements, I personally think that there has been an increase in the amount of international couples in recent years. In the old days, people barely have connections with foreigners, whereas the boundaries became blurry between nations and nations, also, continents and continents. It is this phenomenon that more new problems we’ve never faced had appeared.

 The problems varied. However, I found it quite interesting when my high school teacher mentioned “Is it acceptable to have a leader who has parents from two nations that are in political tension?” We all know that Taiwan has more than a hundred and thirty thousands of foreign spouses, who are mainly origin from Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, to name a few. It sounds exactly nothing that you might say “Nationalities doesn’t matter, love is more important.” It is no doubt that this is so true, but how about a president that is half-Taiwanese and half-Chinese? Perhaps this is not a problem at all, the president right now is 100% Chinese, but born in British Hong Kong, grown up in Taiwan and studied in the US. Yet, the polls tell the truth.

 As far as my knowledge is concerned, there are no probable solutions to this argument. China always adds pressure to Taiwan, they just need to force 1/1000 of their population to immigrate to our country, then we’ll be dead. Other than that, they’re really good on controlling the economy since they have almost 1/5 of the entire population on earth. There is an old saying, in fact it was about just a year ago: “God bless Taiwan.” 

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What I think "Global Citizenship and Cultural Literacy" means

  In my own opinion, the world had became more like a huge family, that is global village, in the recent years. People of different nations and folks have been trading over the pass thousands of years, however, not until Columbus discovered America had it became more frequently, and that was only about 500 years ago.

  Due to the highly developed technology, the boundaries between countries and continents are not as clear as in the past, As everyone knows, the world had changed, wars are no longer firing only on the battlefields, but could be at anywhere, such as on the Internet. Global citizenship plays important role in this case, it combines various cultures and gather people's faith. Faith of making our earth better and peaceful.

  There are a variety of folks that speak different languages, living in different places and have different values. Everything is unique, it seems to be the only thing we've been sharing together is the scientific name, Homo. So it comes to the problem of dealing the conflicts between two distinct groups. To know the way of communication, to avoid conflicts, and to learn the way to survive in such a big time. Understanding another culture, and knowing how to use the given language fluently is the major part of being a cultural literacy person.

  However, the most important thing is to respect every single culture and every individuals. Doesn't matter which culture were you origin from, there's no discrimination in an ideal global world.

My summer vacation

  I traveled alone all the way down to New Zealand this summer, or maybe it's better to say winter when I flew over the equator to the southern hemisphere.

  As I arrived in Wellington after a long flight, the cold and strong wind smashed on my face. The air was fresh, fresher than the smog and smoke in my hometown.

  I met some new friends as well. Friends from different countries, all over the world. Some of them got lost in their lives, but could still find the way in Wellington, the mapless city. People in this cool capital are friendly that they're willing to help you, I lost my wallet and got it back. I felt like as I was still in Taiwan.

  I visited Weta, where my dream place to work. I went to NZ comicon, which is completely different with CWT (Comic World in Taiwan). Shops closed at around 6 PM, trains will only have one run each hour when it's over 6 o'clock at night. "Is this really a capital city?" I wondered.

  I stayed with my host family, a homosexual couple. What I've learnt from them is "Gender doesn't really matter." I also attended a funeral in the church, which was quite different with Taiwanese funeral. It was a holy and peaceful ceremony. People were sharing about the best memories they had done with the person, memories of joy as well as the sad ones. But all in all, they showed respect and love to the man in the coffin, heaven, I'd like to say

  Time flies faster than an arrow, but slowly went through the tunnel when I was on the cable car, or train, or even bus. Tunnels were everywhere. I love that people honk their horns while they're in the Mt. Victoria tunnel, Honk-honk to say bye-bye to the lady who was murdered and buried inside the tunnel. If I've never been to Wellington myself, I'd never know these stories that brighten this rainy and windy city.

  44 days is way too short to explore a little capital city. Yes, it really is a capital in a cool way. I didn't buy any souvenirs cause things are extremely expensive there. Instead, I made people sign on my flag. This is definitely the best souvenir ever.

  Will there be a trip to New Zealand again? Haven't seen any kiwis yet, why not? Still haven't took the Northern Explorer, not even mentioned to the south island by the Blue Bridge. I enjoy spending my summertime in winter, would be a good idea to spend my wintertime in summer as well!